


Turn Back the Clock

by phoenixyfriend



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2018-11-06 10:44:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11034552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: Lance was all of nineteen years old, had spent the last two years and change fighting a war against an evil alien empire, and had lost six friends in one fell stroke just a week and a half ago.And with a little help, he was going to fix that.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Art done by thewonderfulwizardofass on tumblr.

Lance woke up with a scream and tears on his face.

He didn’t fall out of his bed, or start hyperventilating, or any number of things that could have resulted from his nightmare.

He just woke up, suddenly and completely, and stopped screaming after a few long seconds where reality reasserted itself around him. He stared at the ceiling as his breathing slowed, not necessarily seeing it, and tried to ignore the voices still screaming from his memories.

Lance wasn’t going to be getting any more sleep tonight.

The lights were out, but that was an easy fix.

“Lights, sixty percent,” he managed to croak out, voice rough from a throat rubbed raw by the night’s terrors.

He sat up slowly, ignoring the way the scar stretching from shoulder to hip pulled at the movement, and swung his legs off the bed. He leaned forward to rest his weight on his knees, digging his fingers into his own hair and sighing heavily.

Fuck.

“Is Coran awake?” He asked after a long moment, looking up at the small electronic panel next to the door. He’d left it on silent weeks ago and hadn’t had reason to change it since, so any answer that the castle gave was going to be visual and in Altean.

_No._

“Slav?”

_Yes._

“Where is he?”

A series of numbers and Altean letters, indicating the room and region of the castle. Lance slotted it together in his head and nodded to himself. The workshop.

o.o.o.o.o

The castle felt empty around him, cloyingly cold in a way that sank into his bones. It didn’t matter that the temperature was high enough for him to be comfortable, of course. Not after… well.

Not after what happened at Jashekrix.

Lance knocked on the workshop door three times, then stood back and waited for a request to either stay or leave.

“Come in!”

Lance felt his shoulders droop with relief that he was cleared to enter, and slipped in as soon as the door hissed open. “Hey, Slav.”

The ferretlike alien gave him a considering look as he sat down in the chair reserved for guests so that they wouldn’t make a mess or intrude far enough to trigger an Obsessive Compulsive meltdown. “You couldn’t sleep?”

“…can you blame me?”

“Not at all! Sleep is when your brain tries to process many things, and right now, the biggest thing on your mind is—”

“Don’t.” Lance croaked out, damning himself a little for how easy it was for his voice to slip back to something so rough with just a small reminder of what had happened. “Please, don’t.”

“…okay, then.” Slav turned back to his worktable, playing around with some holograms that were apparently going to be blueprints. “Do you have anything you want to talk about?”

“Not really.” Lance cupped his hands around his elbows and leaned back in the soft chair, mind already spinning back to what had happened. “I just… don’t want to be alone right now.”

Slav’s rapid movements stilled, if only for a moment, before going back to his work. “I understand. It’s very hard, losing someone like that.”

“You say that like you didn’t care about them just as much as I did.”

“I’m not a paladin, though! Didn’t have that mental connection. Didn’t feel them die like you did.”

Lance breathed in sharply, eyes widening even as something in his brain hit the ‘on’ button for his tear ducts. None of it spilled over, but… well. Natural response, really.

His fingers hurt. He looked down to see them digging into the arms of his chair to the point the joints were almost white.

Ow.

“Ooooooh no. I said something very wrong, didn’t I?”

“No k-k-kidding.” Lance had to take a deep, shuddering breath.

_He could still hear their—_

“Should I distract you?”

“Just don’t talk a-a-about what happened a-at J-J-Jashe—”

“In approximately 0.47% of realities, you are not a cisgender male by your species’ standards!” Slav started, and then kept going. “In approximately 1.0% of realities, you are Altean yourself! In about 6.75% of realities, the war does not exist, and even the aliens you have met since leaving your home planet have local human equivalents. Even _I_ have a local human equivalent! It is very distressing to think about. I have trouble imagining myself functioning well with only one pair of arms. I have no idea how species with only one set do it!”

Lance’s breathing evened out again, slowly.

Slav popped into his field of vision. “Hello.”

“Hi.”

“I called for Coran. I think he would know better than I do how to help.”

“That’s probably true.”

Slav watched for a moment longer, then nodded and scurried back to his worktable.

“…I don’t want to do this without them,” Lance said, watching as Slav nodded. The alien was listening, if only distantly. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“We’ve… we spent so long trying to become a team, and we only barely managed it sometimes. And we need Allura for so much _shit_ on this castle, and Pidge and Hunk were the only reason half the tech we had working even got up off the ground sometimes, and Shiro and Keith were the best shock troops a person could ask for and I just… Every time I so much as _think_ about the lions, all I can feel is how empty the places my friends should be. In my mind, in my soul, in all the weird places that nobody should have been except me, and the lions had made it so that other people _fit_ there and now they’re _gone_ and I can’t—”

“Lance.”

Lance looked up to see Coran standing in front of him. They stared at one another for a moment, and then Lance threw himself forward into Coran’s arms, outright bawling.

He was all of nineteen years old, had spent the last two years and change fighting a war against an evil alien empire, and had lost six friends in one fell stroke just a week and a half ago.

“I know,” Coran said, pressing a hand to the back of Lance’s head and tucking it under his chin. His other hand rubbed soothing circles into Lance’s back as heaving sobs wracked his body. Lance might’ve felt guilty about the snot and tears that he was getting all over Coran’s uniform (and God, that had to be addressed, didn’t it, that Coran was sleeping so little that he didn’t see a point in changing into his nightclothes when he did), but he could barely focus on anything beyond the sheer grief and rage and his body’s betrayal in expressing them this way. Coran hadn’t minded the first few times this had happened, anyway. “I know.”

“I _can’t_.”

“I know, Lance.”

Lance let Coran lead him out of the workshop and down to the common area, where the couches were a wee bit more comfortable and there were blankets in easy reach.

…the one that Coran wrapped around Lance’s shoulders smelled like Pidge, which only brought on a fresh wave of tears.

Coran said nothing, just wrapped an arm around Lance and pulled him close, like the physical contact was all that was needed.

It wasn’t, of course, but it helped.

“They’re _gone_ ,” Lance finally managed.

“They are.”

“I can’t do this without them,” he whispered. “I can’t do this alone.”

“We’ll need to find new paladins, yes.”

“Don’t you dare pretend you’re not as torn up about this as I am,” Lance said, his voice audibly flat and dead even to his own ears. A week or more earlier, he might have been shouting the words, accusatory as he possibly could be. But as it was, he could only deliver them as-is, calling Coran out on bottling up his emotions again. “Don’t you _dare_.”

“We’ve a war to fight.”

“A war that killed four paladins, the princess, and the leader of the only rebel Galra group in the _universe_ with any hope of actually _managing_ something,” Lance said.

“A war that will continue to kill until we win,” Coran reminded him. “And for that, we will need Voltron, and for Voltron, we will need paladins.”

“…please don’t say it.”

“They’re going to need a leader, Lance, and you’re the only one with experience.”

“Not now, Coran, please. We can have the Black Lion conversation some other time, just not now, _please_. I can’t handle that right now.”

“Alright, Lance.”

o.o.o.o.o

The explosion had been fast.

Their strategy hadn’t been unusual. Lance had stayed in orbit to play the role of sniper, to be their eyes in the sky and their long-distance support. Coran had done much the same.

Keith, Shiro, and Allura had gone down as the heavy hitters; it would have been paladins-only, but there were rumors that Haggar was present, and Allura was the best choice on that front. She was the _only_ choice, when the witch was involved.

Hunk and Pidge had been needed for some tech thing that Lance hadn’t entire understood, but he’d trusted their judgement, that they were necessary for the mission to succeed.

He couldn’t even remember why Kolivan had gone. He couldn’t remember a lot of things.

What Lance _could_ remember was how it had all gone wrong.

He could remember how Keith’s anguished scream had echoed down the comm lines, Allura’s stony voice informing them that Shiro was down, as though they hadn’t all felt the Black Lion’s storm of rage and grief.

He could remember how Pidge and Hunk told them that the computers had been wiped completely, weeks before the team had even made it planetside, leaving behind only a single program that they couldn’t hack into, a program that was set to go off only if someone tried to access the system.

How the leader of the Blade of Marmora had phoned in with a report that the planet was about to go boom and they had _no time_.

How Keith had given a broken order to retreat, _now, dammit, before we lose this to—_

How the planet had gone down in pieces before the paladins had even made it back to their lions, unable to take shelter in the solid metal forms that had been their primary protection for years now.

How the lions hadn’t been fast enough either.

How, despite that, Lance maintained the psychic connection the lions provided, if only a tiny bit, and felt it as four of his friends died.

How the lions had limped their ways back into the castle, all empty save for Blue.

How he’d searched out the bodies with Coran’s help.

How they’d held a funeral.

(Cremation, and _God_ he never talked about it with any of them, but he hoped it was enough. That it was right. They couldn’t hold a burial in space, but hopefully cremation wasn’t against any of their religions or personal preferences.)

(He should have asked. They’d all known that dying was a risk they had to take out here, so they should have talked about it more. He should have _asked_. )

How it had all fallen to pieces.

o.o.o.o.o

Coran did what he could to honor the deaths of the paladins. He kept his chin up and his eyes dry and ignored the hollow feeling in his chest from the fall of Altea, the feeling that had only grown larger with the fresh loss of the paladins and Allura.

Coran gave them all two weeks to grieve before trying to move on. There weren’t many people left to _do_ the grieving, not on the castle, but the Blade of Marmora had its own concerns with their leader gone. They were faster about recovering than the castle inhabitants, though.

But now he had to pull a new team together. It would be difficult, with Allura gone, but at least there was a training regimen in place, and extra teachers they could pull from the Blade, if necessary. Altea only knew that Coran couldn’t handle everything alone.

Well, not entirely alone. He slid a glance over at Lance. The boy had entered an unhealthy mental state characterized by some severely decreased levels of certain neurotransmitters that he knew were necessary to a human’s continued wellbeing. Dopamine and serotonin, he thought he’d heard them called.

(“That sounds like depression, and I am absolutely hoping it doesn’t go clinical.”)

(“What?”)

(“We can’t afford for it to last that long, Coran.”)

(Lance had laughed, like it was a joke, but the sound had been a sad and pathetic little thing, no true humor at all.)

He sighed to himself and stood up from the controls, turning to make his way down to the hangar with the lions. He was never going to be able to communicate with them as well as a paladin could, or Allura had, but he could get _some_ feedback on what they wanted out of their next paladins. He could ask and get the answers he needed, if they had already picked someone or needed to see potential newcomers first.

Lance didn’t follow, just stayed at his controls and stared unseeingly at them.

Coran felt his own frown deepen as he went further down. There was no doubt in his mind that the Black Lion would accept Lance as her new paladin if circumstances played out as expected. There was no one else who _could_ take that position, not with the team being decimated as it was. Sure, Lance’s quintessence didn’t match up perfectly, but he had the ability to lead and as the only remaining paladin, the newcomers would look to him for guidance regardless of who sat in the seat. There was no point in inciting a leadership conflict, as unwilling as it would be on Lance’s part, without reason.

Lance wouldn’t be happy about leaving Blue, but two years as a soldier had left him with a sense for duty. He would do what needed to be done to win the war, so long as he could stomach it.

“Hello, old friend.”

The Black Lion’s eyes remained dark, but she didn’t put her shield up. Coran walked closer and put a hand on her paw, closing his eyes and sending a pulse of quintessence through. _Please talk to me._

It took a moment, long enough for him to crack open one eye and search the hangar for a sign of _any_  response, but Black’s eyes lit up with a small whirring noise, and all around him, the rest of the lions followed suit.

She lowered her head to him, waiting until he placed a hand to her cold metal snout and closed his eyes again.

 _Speak_.

“You’re going to need new paladins. All of you.”

A twinge of discomfort and… stifled indignation, perhaps? Blue was taking offense, but pushing it down. She’d already guessed what he planned.

“Would you be willing to take Lance as your new paladin? No matter who the others are, they will look to him for guidance. He’s all that’s left.”

 _If needed_.

Coran didn’t like the sound of that. “It _is_ needed. Shiro is… we’ve lost him before, Black Lion, but this time, he’s truly dead.”

 ** _I know_. ** The lion pushed back a wave of grief, echoed by the others, even Blue, who’d been the lucky one in this situation. _All lost but Little Blue. Will take Little Blue if needed, but may not be **needed**. Listen, Royal Advisor._

“…Explain, please.”

The lions hesitated, mentally jostling one another to take center stage even as their metal bodies remained stock still. Green finally spoke.

_Ask Builder. Knows something. Can help, using Big Sister’s quintessence. Builder unsure if will work, but we know._

Builder. Slav? They wanted him to speak with Slav?

“He can’t bring your paladins back,” he warned.

 _Can help. Can **fix.**_ Yellow insisted.

 _Brother is right. Builder can build and fix._ Red insisted, mental tail lashing. _Refuse to lose little pilots **again**._

Grief again, almost overwhelming with its power. Ten thousand years, and not one of them had forgotten their paladins of old.

Black’s grief was tinged with a wild rage, tempered like steel but unhidden.

 _Go speak to Builder._ She repeated.

“I’ll ask,” he promised. There was little else he could do, when all five lions were insisting like this.

o.o.o.o.o

“Oh!” Slav poked his fingers together, looking away. His malleable beak seemed to shiver under the scrutiny. “Yes, I was considering something. It’s only a theory, though! There are many universes where it does not work!”

“And what was it?” Coran asked, keeping his hands tucked behind his back as he stood a little ways into the room. “The lions seemed very insistent that I ask.”

“The Black Lion’s energy is very good for playing around with space,” Slav said slowly. “And has many uses. However, space and time are intertwined, and the princess did tell a story of a time loop that she entered in a corrupted wormhole that only she was unaffected by. So if you play with space the right way, it can definitely change time.”

“You’re suggesting time-travel.” There was no doubt in Coran’s tone.

“It’s possible. I’m not sure if I can control it.” Slav curled in on himself a little. “It’s all very unstable.”

“The Black Lion said you were unsure, but that they were all confident that you could do it.” Coran kept his hands behind his, kept them tightly grasped so that he wouldn’t start shaking or fidgeting in front of the one person who could maybe pull this off. “We could call up the Olkari, get some help with the construction.”

Slav tilted his head. “You’re not doubting me.”

“No.”

“…I won’t need the Olkari. Just you and the lions.”

“We’re not telling Lance, not yet.”

o.o.o.o.o

Lance stared at the apparent time machine. It looked like a set of med bay pods, and something in his gut clenched in a Pavlovian terror response when he saw it.

(Two years, and he still hadn’t moved past the castle trying to kill him, and by God, he’d tried, but the fact that he associated the pods so strongly with being horrifically injured didn’t help matters.)

“It’ll work?” He finally managed to rasp out around what felt like a knife in his throat.

“The lions seem to think so,” Coran said. “I trust their judgement, and Slav’s skills.”

“How… how does it work? How far back?” Lance shook his head, clearing it a little. “I don’t mean the technology itself, I know I won’t understand that, but… mental or physical?”

“Mental! Only the mind and quintessence go back.” Slav scurried around the space, triple-checking the wiring and programming and any number of things. “Your body is going to be erased from existence when the universe changes around it.”

“Lovely,” Lance drawled in an attempt at nonchalance, and maybe he looked a little sick to his stomach, but this was a time machine. It was even more Sci Fi than their lives already were, but it was a solution. A wonderful, miraculous solution to deaths that should have never happened. “And, um, how far back? Just a few weeks, or months or…?”

“The lions can take us each back a few years,” Coran said, focusing on the papers in his hands. “It… they won’t be the same people we knew, Lance, but the earlier we start preparing, or changing things, the more people we can save in the long-term. The more mistakes we can undo.”

“You’d be sent back the farthest,” Slav said, not looking away from his work; he didn’t seem to be paying much serious attention to what he was saying. “I cannot do much to prepare while in Beta Traz, and Coran will still be asleep in the cryo pod!”

“How far?” Lance repeated, mouth going dry. They weren’t wrong, they _weren’t_ , but it would be like losing his friends in an entirely different way.

They could fix this, but…

“They won’t be the people we knew, not anymore. They’ll have several years taken from them without even realizing,” Coran said quietly, putting a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “But we can get them prepared earlier, be more efficient overall. Just a fraction of an increase in Voltron’s formation speed could save millions of lives over those several years of battle.”

Lance’s eyes squeezed shut, because he knew this, he _did_. And having them back without those years of memories would hurt, but Coran was right that it would be better in the long run, that a few years of memories taken from everyone but the three of them was worth the millions of lives they could save by being even a tiny bit more ready a tiny bit earlier.

“How many years?”

“Perhaps a year and several months before Allura and I awoke, in Earth time,” Coran said. “Is there anything you can do with that?”

Figure out a way to befriend Keith before Kerberos got fucked over and gain Pidge’s trust earlier, probably. That landing point would be several months before Shiro and the Holts went down, so Keith would still be in flight school with Lance. Train his own body to be better at hand-to-hand and such before the war started, which would cut down on the amount of time he took to handle soldiers in early fights, which could lower civilian casualties and Galra morale if stories of the Voltron Paladins’ (hopefully) competent fighting skills made it back as gossip. Have drop bags ready so that he had clothing and technology and photos from home even while in space.

Have a chance to see his family again, to say goodbye for real.

“Yeah. There’s a lot I could do with a year and change before going up in Blue again.” He shifted from one foot to the other, uncomfortable. “But, um…”

“Yes?”

“I can’t… I can’t take them up in Blue without telling them what’s going on first. It’s unethical to the extreme, isn’t it? Dragging people without their consent into a war they don’t even know exists, especially when all but one are still minors? That’s just… we all agreed once we were already up here, but I can’t take them to Blue without telling them what’s going on, not when I already _know_.”

Coran eyed him for a long moment, and then sighed. “You’re a persuasive person, Lance, I’m sure you won’t have trouble convincing them to come up.”

“But—”

“Shiro would come because he has lived through the effects of the war by that point, in the Arena and in the loss of his crew. Keith would come because he would feel that same pull from the stars that he described to us so many times, and because he has nothing tying him to Earth. Pidge would only need to be told that this is how to find her family.” Coran put his hands on Lance’s shoulders and looked him in the eyes. “You will only have trouble with Hunk, and I trust you to be able to handle your best friend.”

Lance dropped his gaze to the floor and breathed deep. “Okay. Okay. We can do this.”

“We can.”

“We’re going to time travel.”

“We are.”

“I’m terrified.”

“As am I, but it’s the only way.” Coran pulled him into a tight hug, tucking Lance’s head under his own chin and holding him close. “You’ve been brilliant for years, my boy. You can do this.”

“ _God_ , I hope so.”

Blue’s purr filled the back of his mind, reminding him that he had someone in his corner no matter what.

“Just don’t forget that it’s all riding on you this time!” Slav cheerily reminded him. “Imagine if you mess up!”

“I’d really rather not.” Lance pulled away from the hug and gave Slav a flat stare. One of Coran’s hands was still on his shoulder, a comforting weight on its own.

“Slav,” Coran said, shaking his head in a wordless warning. “Not helping.”

“Are they ready?’ Lance asked, before the conversation could go back to… everything. “Are you guys done building them, or…”

“We are.” Coran squeezed the hand that was still on Lance’s shoulder. “Do you feel ready?”

Lance hesitated, considered the fact that he’d be bringing back nothing but his own memories, and then nodded.

The only preparation needed was the information on the war, like troop movements and such, which was really better left to the other two, the time machines themselves, which they’d already taken care of without him, and mental preparation, which… well, Lance’s mental state didn’t really need any refining for time travel.

There was nothing else for it, really.

“Does it work on automatic, or do we need someone to activate it from outside?”

“The Black Lion will be activating it once we are prepared to leave, and the others will be helping power it.” Coran said. He gestured at one of the pods. “After you.”

Lance stepped inside, turned around, and watched as the translucent blue pod cover came down over him.

Then there was a hissing of air, and darkness.

o.o.o.o.o

Lance awoke in near-total darkness, to a room filled with stifling air that felt like it hadn’t been properly circulated, but tasted and smelled familiar in a very distant sort of way.

He wasn’t screaming this time, at least. That was nice.

Lance sat up slowly, feeling around immediately in his mind for Blue.

A tired _mrrr?_ met his poking.

Lance sent out a feeling of inquisitiveness, curiosity. A ‘did it work’ and an ‘are you okay?’

Exhausted relief hit him in return. Blue wouldn’t be flying or fighting any time soon (and there went Lance’s half-formed thoughts on saving Shiro and the Holts before they got captured by Zarkon), but she was awake, and responding, and telling him they were back on Earth.

“Lance?”

The voice was familiar in a way that made Lance feel like he’d just been punched in the gut.

Hunk sounded so _young_. Only three years and change back and already he was just… just… just _overwhelmed._

He barely realized that he’d gasped, a sharp and jagged noise that had Hunk, all of sixteen years old and still in the Garrison engineering school that prepared him for the actual Garrison, still _untouched by war_ , scrambling to turn on the light.

“Lance? Lance, you’re _crying_ , dude, are you okay?”

Hunk was suddenly right at his side, pulling an arm around Lance’s shoulder in a way that only had Lance crying even harder, because it had been almost two months since he’d felt his best friend’s arms around him and it was just. Too. Much.

He turned and flung his arms (so skinny, so weak, how had he even _survived_ those first few months against the Galra when his body was more suited to swimming and dancing than to fighting?) around Hunk and pushed his face into his best friend’s chest and fucking _sobbed._

“Hey, hey, I don’t know what this is about, but it’s going to be okay. You know that, right? Everything is going to be alright.”

Of course it was, Lance thought. Because if it wasn’t, he’d be pulling a Keith and going to challenge Zarkon and Haggar to a knife fight at two in the morning in a Space Denny’s parking lot alone.

Metaphorically, anyway.

The point was, Lance was going to make _sure_ that things were okay. Things were going to end perfectly, or they weren’t going to end at all.

“Yeah, Hunk. I know. It was just… a really, really shitty dream.”

And this time, it would be staying just that. Just a bad dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The art from this chapter: http://thewonderfulwizardofass.tumblr.com/post/161205547393/  
> The associated shitpost: http://thewonderfulwizardofass.tumblr.com/post/161209022868/


	2. In Which Hunk is a Suspicious Nugget

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had been over three years since Lance had lived this day for the first time. Of _course_ he wasn't going to remember everything...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying out something with the panel arrangement here. Not sure if it breaks up the flow too much or not, though.
> 
>  **Warnings:** There is a PTSD-induced panic attack written out in detail from the perspective of the person suffering the panic attack. If you wish to skip it, it starts just as the pictures end, and ends with "Time-travel."

Hunk had known Lance for years. They’d met in the pre-Garrison academy, the one that anyone who wanted even a _chance_ at joining the Galaxy Garrison went to. They’d met as roommates, started talking, and just…clicked. At this point, Hunk knew Lance almost better than he knew himself.

Or at least, he’d _thought_ he knew Lance that well.

It had taken only a few months for Hunk to be able to predict Lance’s reaction to just about anything with startling accuracy. Certain quirks meant certain moods or patterns of thought. Certain classmates would gain certain reactions. Certain classes caused certain emotions. There were patterns to Lance, and Hunk had figured them out years ago.

Lance was breaking pattern now.

Hunk figured that it had to do with whatever nightmare Lance had had last night. He just couldn’t figure out what kind of nightmare could have caused, well, _this_.

“Lance, you’ve been having your Calc class in that room for two and a half months. You haven’t had trouble finding the classroom since the third day. How… how did you just _randomly_ forget where it is?”

Lance stared down at his schedule with something that might have been, if Hunk were used to using such words, befuddlement.

“I don’t… my brain is doing some funny stuff right now,” Lance finally said. “Everything feels a little fake.”

Hunk bit his lip to keep from commenting on how that was a bad sign. “Okay. I’ll just… walk you to your class then?”

Lance gave him a relieved smile, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Awesome. Thanks.”

Now if only Lance would stop _staring_ at him.

It wasn’t immediately obvious. Lance kept his eyes down and away and focused on other things when they weren’t talking, and was careful about how much eye contact he made when they _did_ talk. Still, Hunk noticed. He could feel Lance’s eyes on him whenever he turned away, noticed a reflection or two where Lance wasn’t focused on finding his clothes but just… watching.

“Lance?” Hunk said, just before he was about to leave. “Are you done?”

“Uh, duh, obviously.” Lance clapped him on the shoulder and grinned, leaning in and putting the side of his head to Hunk’s shoulder as well. “You worry too much, bro.”

The words were all Lance, and the expression, and the body language, but something was still… wrong. Like, uncanny valley wrong. Like it wasn’t really _Lance_ , just someone that was good at faking at being him.

“Are you a pod person?” Hunk asked before he could stop himself.

“…what.”

“You’re just… you’re acting weird,” Hunk muttered. He turned away, fiddling with the zipper of his bag. “Like you’re… I don’t know, a robot that got perfect instructions on how to be you and the real Lance got stolen. Or something. Like, you’re _you_ but there’s something weird going on and it’s not just your ‘homesick weird’ or the ‘got a bad grade weird’ or the kind of weird you got after you forgot to take your ADHD meds and went into that really bad brain spiral about no—”

“Hunk,” Lance cut him off, putting a hand on his shoulder and turning him around. Lance leaned forward to look him in the eyes. They were still standing just inside the door, and Hunk couldn’t really spare a thought for the fact that they might be late to breakfast if they stayed here much longer. “There’s… a lot of shit that’s contributing to this.”

“You said ‘shit.’” Hunk said, just a little stunned. “You never curse.”

Something spasmed in Lance’s face, a flicker of emotions too fast to name. “That’s… I can’t…”

Lance seemed to lose whatever was holding him up, like a puppet with its strings cut, and fell forward to press his face to Hunk’s collarbone. “It’s _really_ complicated.”

“Can you uncomplicate it?”

Lance stilled. “Not yet.”

“Not… yet?” Hunk asked. “Does this mean I’ll get an uncomplicated version someday?”

“Oh, it’ll still be complicated. But I can tell you then,” Lance clarified. “I promise I’ll tell you everything someday, but I can’t tell you _now_.”

“Because…”

Lance was silent for a long moment, chewing his lip. “Because I’m not the only one this affects. I can tell you once everyone else is present, but you can’t meet them for another… what day is it?”

“The fifteenth,” Hunk said immediately.

“…what _month?”_ Lance asked, his voice quiet and somewhat embarrassed.

Hunk didn’t really know how to take that, so he just answered as precisely as he could.  “Friday, April fifteenth, 2072.”

Lance hesitated a moment, and then said, “A year and three months, I think. Next July, but I couldn’t tell you which…” He zoned out for a long moment. “Oh. Okay. July twenty-fourth, probably.”

“Lance, you’re really worrying me here.”

“That’s when we’ll have everyone, and when you’ll meet the other people the secret affects. I can’t give you more than that,” Lance said, and Hunk could hear desperation creeping in. “I _can’t_ , Hunk.”

“Okay, okay, just… can I get some hints about how to help?” Hunk asked, stepping back. “Seriously, you woke up _screaming,_ and you’re acting like… not yourself, basically. People are going to notice something, Lance. What do I tell them?”

Lance made a frustrated noise and stepped back, folding his arms over his chest and hunching his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“I have to tell them something if they ask, and I’m no good at coming up with lies on the spot,” Hunk said.

“Just… just tell them that I had a bad dream that made me forget to take my meds, and the ADHD is making me act out or something,” Lance said, face scrunched up in frustration. “Nobody else knows me well enough to figure out that it’s not true. I mean, it’s happened before _anyway_ , but nobody else is going to know that the symptoms are different.”

“Can I ask what the dream was about?”

Lance’s face dropped. “I don’t… it was… a memory I’d really rather forget, I guess.”

Hunk raised his eyebrows, trying to prompt Lance to say a little more.

“I can’t… I can’t do _details_ , or even the general picture, just…” Lance was tearing up now, and Hunk had to fight the urge to just rush over and stop Lance from rubbing at his eyes and getting germs in them. He also had to fight the urge to go over and give Lance another hug, because that would just make answers harder to get. “Okay. There was. There was an incident. I’m one of three people who knows what happened, and the dream was about the incident.”

Hunk considered that. “Do your parents—”

“ _No,_ ” Lance said immediately. “No, god no, the only other people who know are… unavailable until next July.”

Hunk bit his lip and watched Lance, trying not to react when Lance looked up at him with pleading eyes. _Please drop the subject_.

“Do I need to worry about anything?” Hunk finally asked. “About you?”

“…I’m probably going to have more nightmares,” Lance said. “And there might be panic attacks where I’m not entirely sure where and when I am. And I’m probably going to do some stuff that seems weird and out of character to you, and I won’t always be able to tell you why.”

“Are you going to hurt yourself?”

A pregnant silence hung in the air.

“…I don’t know yet,” Lance finally said. “I don’t think so, but I know the risks.”

 _The risks_ , Hunk mentally repeated to himself, feeling just a little like laughing because _what the actual hell_. “Are you sure I don’t need to worry about you?”

“You know what to watch out for, I think.” Lance tilted his head, eyes going distant. “I totally failed to convince you things were okay for long enough to get us out of the _room_ , even. You’re too perceptive.”

 _Perceptive_. That was another thing that Hunk was realizing had thrown him off. The way Lance was talking was just barely different enough to make it weird. He didn’t tend to use words that were considered higher-level normally, whether due to subtlety of meaning or just length. The languages got mixed up in his head, according to him, and Hunk had never had reason to question that, beyond thinking that Lance probably needed to practice with some of those words more before they joined the Garrison proper.

Except suddenly he was using words that he usually avoided like the plague.

“Do you have a support system other than me?” Hunk asked. “You said your parents don’t know, and the other people involved are unavailable.”

“I—yeah. Yeah, I do.” Lance smiled, and there was a fatigue in it that Hunk didn’t know what to make of. “You’re not the only one looking out for me.”

“Who is it?”

“You don’t know her,” Lance said, shaking his head. “She’s…not really normal, and doesn’t always know how to… how to human, basically, but she’s kind of a mom friend and she’s good at reading what my problems are.”

“How are you going to contact her?” Hunk asked. “If I don’t know this girl, then she doesn’t go to the Garrison, right? Are you going to Skype her? Call?”

Lance snorted at that, and then outright laughed. Despite his confusion, Hunk felt something loosen in his chest to see it after the frankly disastrous morning he’d had.

“That, Hunk, is for me to know, and you to find out.” Lance sprang to his feet and slung an arm around Hunk’s shoulders. “Now, let’s go get breakfast. I’m starving and real food sounds _really_ good right now.”

o.o.o.o.o

Hunk was not a fan of the Garrison’s cafeteria food. It wasn’t _bad_ , but it was largely mediocre with the occasional above-average meal, and Hunk relied on his moms’ care packages for anything to the effect of cravings, traditional food, sweets, or delicacies. While Hunk ate it anyway with the kind of resignation that meant a minimum of complaining, Lance himself was usually a lot more vocal than Hunk was when it came to the shortcomings of the Garrison food.

Until now, apparently, seeing as he was shoveling forkfuls of substandard omelet into his mouth like he’d never see it again. Hunk looked on, taken aback and glad that nobody had tried to make conversation with the two of them this morning.

“Are you _sure_ you’re not a pod person?” Hunk asked when Lance took a momentary pause to drink some orange juice from the carton with a moan that the orange juice really didn’t deserve.

“Yeah,” Lance gasped, going back to the meal. “I said some things would be weird and I couldn’t tell you why, right? This is one of them.”

“You _hate_ Garrison food, though,” Hunk pointed at Lance’s plate. “You’ve told me how much you hate that omelet like four times.”

“Shit happens,” Lance said, shrugging. He paused with his fork on its way up to his next mouthful, though, staring at the door. His expression flickered for a moment, settling into something contemplative and mostly neutral as he set his fork back down, head tilted.

Hunk turned to look at the door, and then immediately spun around to face Lance again. “No.”

Lance blinked at him. “No what?”

“ _Please_ don’t pick a fight with Keith again.”

“I’m not going to pick a fight with him,” Lance said, almost absent-minded. He went back to staring at Keith, still pensive.

“You always pick a fight with him,” Hunk grumbled, going back to his own food. “If you aren’t going to pick a fight, then why are you staring at him?”

“He needs friends,” Lance said, so lightly and matter-of-factly that Hunk almost didn’t realize what he’d said until several seconds later.

“He what?” Hunk choked out, staring at Lance.

“He doesn’t have any friends. I think he’d benefit from some.” Lance tore his eyes away from Keith and turned back to Hunk. “Don’t you think so?”

Hunk stared at him.

Lance frowned and reached forward to poke him in the shoulder. “Hey, c’mon. Wouldn’t you?”

“Are you _sure_ you’re not a pod person?” Hunk repeated. “You hate Keith! You always talk about how much you hate Keith!”

Lance shrugged and took a bite of his omelet, eyes drifting back over to Keith. “I know things I didn’t know before. And I still say he needs friends.”

“Are you going to be that friend?” Hunk asked, already feeling where this was going.

“ _We_ are,” Lance confirmed.

“If this is a prank, I’m out,” Hunk warned. “I’m not going to pretend to befriend someone just because you’re jealous of his flight skills.”

“Pretend to—Hunk! I’m not _that_ much of a jerk!” Lance slumped in his seat and pouted.

(It looked a little fake.)

“Lance, you’ve changed your mind on so many things today that I have no idea what is or isn’t real anymore,” Hunk said. “Next you’re going to say that Keith’s a better flier than you are and deserves the top spot.”

“I mean, yeah, but he’s a terrible shot.”

“…what?”

“He’s got a lot of natural talent with flying,” Lance said, apparently not caring that he was breaking Hunk’s brain. “But have you ever seen him at a shooting range?”

“No. No, Lance, I haven’t. Why have _you?_ ”

“His aim is _terrible_ ,” Lance said with visible relish. “You could put him fifteen feet from the target and he’d still miss it. Not just the bullseye, but the _entire target_. It’s legitimately sad.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you’ve seen him shoot,” Hunk said. “Or when. We don’t even start firearms until next year?”

Lance opened his mouth to answer, and then closed it, frowning. His gaze dropped down to his omelet as he seemed to consider something very hard. After a moment, he shrugged and went back to eating, face clearing out. “I guess you’re right.”

Hunk waited for an explanation, but there was none forthcoming. He tried to address the earlier issue instead, because if Lance was going to keep being all circuitous, then Hunk was going to have to deal with it. “You can’t just go up to Keith and tell him he needs friends.”

“He’d probably punch me in the face,” Lance said, nodding as he chewed. “And I don’t think I can take him right now.”

 _Why is he admitting that Keith is better than him at something?_ Hunk tried not to think about it. “So what are you going to do?”

Lance bopped his head from one side to the other a few times. “Haven’t decided yet. I have a few ideas, though.”

“Okay, then,” Hunk said, shaking his head. “You… you do that.”

“I will, thanks,” Lance said with a grin, going back to shoveling the omelet into his mouth.

“I’m going to be late to class if we don’t leave soon,” Hunk reminded him. “Since I apparently need to remind you where your Calc room is.”

“I’ll figure it out eventually,” Lance said dismissively. “Besides, it’s not like the teachers expect a lot out of me, right? I’ll get detention if I’m late and an eye-roll if I’m not.”

“I mean…” Hunk fidgeted. He wasn’t used to Lance being so matter-of-fact about how his antics made the faculty react to him.

“Let’s go,” Lance said, getting to his feet and heading for the doors. “I have no idea what the homework even was, so let’s hope I got something finished last night.”

“…you don’t know if you did your homework?” Hunk asked for clarification.

Lance shot him a sunny, incredibly fake grin. “Nope!”

o.o.o.o.o

Lance wasn’t surprised, after some reflection, that Hunk was suspicious as all get out.

Lance hadn’t prepared to go back in time, not really. All things considered, Hunk being suspicious was kind of inevitable. If he’d had a roommate who cared less, or come back at a crucial transfer stage, like the plane ride from his parents’ house in Cali to Arizona for the start of the school year, he’d have been able to play it off. But, well, he hadn’t. He’d woken up mid-semester, in the same room as his best friend, and had no actual plans regarding, well, anything. He’d always had trouble hiding things from Hunk, and hiding the fact that he didn’t even remember the school’s layout or his own schedule despite it being _April_ in his third year here at the pre-Garrison school… well, that was unsurprisingly difficult.

Lance wasn’t ashamed to say that he’d failed miserably.

 _You sure you couldn’t have helped?_ He asked Blue.

Laughter and laziness met his query. Blue thought it was funny, and was a little too tired to dig through Lance’s memories and dust them off for him. She pushed back an image of Hunk and some optimism, a sensation of trust and comfort.

_I know he’s my best friend, and I’d trust him with my life, but he doesn’t deserve to deal with my shit._

Blue growled at that, and pushed back the memory of Hunk asking, _“Do you have a support system other than me?”_

Lance bit his lip. _Are you telling me I need someone other than you to make sure I don’t crack?_

A deep, rumbling purr filled his head for a moment. That was a yes, then.

 _I guess… thanks, Blue._ Lance ducked his head to hide his smile, pretending to focus on his notes. _Thanks for caring_.

A scoff, warmth and protectiveness, a sensation like a blanket wrapping protectively around him. More purring.

_Love you too, Blue._

“Mr. Álvarez!” The teacher snapped, and Lance’s head shot up. Shit. She was already annoyed that his homework had been only half-done. What now? “Can you come up to the board and demonstrate how to find the limit of question number four?”

 _Shit_. Lance licked his lips and glanced down at his paper, then up at the projected questions, and gulped. “I can try?”

Ms. Zhang raised an eyebrow and gestured at the board. “Please do.”

Lance had never been particularly good at math. As much as he loved space, and as much as he loved science in theory, the math parts weren’t really his forte. He knew what he needed to get by, which was probably more than most people his actual age, since he’d needed to know plenty in order to get into the Garrison, but he wasn’t a genius like Hunk or Pidge.

(Despite, or maybe even in concert with, his love of space, Lance had always been more of a humanities guy. History, music, literature, the performing arts… that was honestly more his jam. He loved space and science, but he had to admit that he wasn’t actually much good at the latter compared to the other Garrison kids, and it was pretty integral to the former when one didn’t have a giant space cat to kidnap them to space anyway.)

(Blue laughed again.)

But he’d kept up with all his pre-Garrison stuff while at the Castle. He was using algebra all the time for currency exchange rates, estimating time and distance conversions between human and various alien measures, and so on. Geometry, and trig in particular, was important for a lot of Blue’s flight maneuvers, especially as a leg, even if he usually was just estimating and letting Blue do the detail work. She pulled him through it, though, letting his brain pull along the paths she went through often enough that he stayed in practice anyway. Calculus, he hadn’t had an opportunity to use for any real reason regularly, but the others had convinced him and Keith to at least stay in practice, doing ‘homework’ in the hangars, made or dug up by Coran, while Pidge and Hunk actually _used_ the same kind of math while doing upgrade work on the lions and various other Castle tech.

So, Lance wasn’t _entirely_ out of practice. Just mostly, because he’d kind of stopped doing anything unnecessary after—

(He cut that thought off before he could put it into words properly.)

Well, he’d stopped really doing anything at all, in the weeks before travelling back in time.

Still! This didn’t have anything with _e_ , or involve integrating a trigonometric function, just fractions and exponents, which he could work with. This wasn’t as simple as a derivative, but it wasn’t much worse. Still on the simple end. He could do this.

So… he did. He bit his lip and hesitated plenty, but he did it. When he stepped back and looked over at Ms. Zhang for confirmation of whether he’d fucked up or not, she was still staring at the board with a critical eye. After a moment, she nodded and turned to him.

“Well done. Take a seat.”

Lance gave her a grin, capped the marker, and went back to his seat.

There were only two months left until the semester ended, but… maybe he’d get more than a C this time?

o.o.o.o.o

He managed to keep it together until PE. He managed to put it out of his mind and act like everything was fine and dandy for the first few classes of the day, because it all was, wasn’t it? Everyone was alive. Shiro still hadn’t even been captured by the Galra, so that was nice.

Lance wasn’t the biggest fan of PE, not really, but he wasn’t bad at it. He needed to pass and be in the upper twentieth percentile of several types of health, most relating to cardio and weightlifting, to have even a chance of getting into fighter class (unlike Pidge and Hunk, who only needed to pass the class, or some equal certification from an independent review of their skills, if they went to a preparatory school that wasn’t Garrison-run, like Pidge had claimed to). Lance was gangly, sure, but he was fast and had some pretty good endurance, and he might not have had the same weightlifting capacity as Shiro and Hunk, but he was about on par with Keith and definitely good enough for the Garrison. He’d lost plenty of muscle mass and a few inches of height by going from barely nineteen to a few months shy of sixteen, and he wasn’t sure enough of how muscle memory worked to know if that was going to stick with him too, but he was still good enough to get into fighter class. He had been before, and he would stay that way.

Regardless of Lance’s feelings on PE or his aptitude for it, the outcome of the day’s activities probably would have been the same.

Lance couldn’t help but think that dodgeball was basically a safer version of some of the combat simulations Allura had put them through. It put him on edge, especially since the only other paladins in the room were Hunk and Keith, neither of whom actually _had_ memories of being paladins. Also, Keith was playing for the opposing team.

It didn’t smell like the Castle training deck. He didn’t feel like he was in his armor. There were too many people in the room, and the lighting was far too yellow, especially when taking the hardwood into account.

So he took a deep breath, full of the scent of sneakers’ rubber and nylon gym shorts and the hundreds of sweaty teens that had passed through today alone, and focused on the game. He’d trained up his overhand back at the Castle, enough so that the gap between his atrocious throwing aim and his excellent shooting aim was no longer hilariously wide, and his reflexes were pretty good, so this should have been a piece of cake, right?

It both was and wasn’t.

Lance was moving as soon as the whistle rang out, mind already running through where to send classmates whose names he half-remembered all around the room, despite the fact that they wouldn’t listen if he tried to order them around anywhere. He sent back as many of the soft balls to his temporary teammates as he could, and focused on dodging as he tried to identify the biggest threats.

It wasn’t exactly hard.

Dodging was second nature. Lance had gotten used to dodging Galra laser fire, when he was too busy moving or otherwise unable to use his shield, and his body could still do the admittedly showy jumps and flips that he’d grown accustomed to using to get out of the way. He mixed up how he dodged, too, enough so that when someone tried to take advantage of his time in the air, he already had a counter in place. Foamy dodgeballs were a lot easier to dodge than alien weapons, basically, and apparently, nobody was the slightest bit surprised that Lance was willing to do a back handspring or a jumping full split to get out of the way of a dodgeball. His personality fit the showy dodging too well, apparently, or… hell, maybe he’d done this at the Garrison before? It had been over three years since he lived through the Garrison pre-Academy; it was entirely possible that he’d done this before and didn’t remember.

Identifying the biggest threats on the other team wasn’t very difficult either. Keith was obviously pretty good at the attack, and it was pretty easy to notice that Hannah Jennings and Julio Hernandez were damn good at it too.

Lance narrowed his eyes as he got up following an unnecessary but incredibly fun forward roll to avoid a particularly large foam ball, and his eyes landed on Keith.

_Breathe._

_Aim._

_Breathe out._

_Fire._

__

The look on Keith’s face was _precious_ , and Lance grinned at him for a moment before scrambling off to find more ammo.

(It took a moment to remember that this Keith didn’t have that same easy camaraderie with Lance that he instinctively expected. This Keith wouldn’t take the grin as the joking challenge it was intended to be, or smile back and sneak up behind him after practice to land a poke at Lance’s ticklish ribs, or yank Lance into his lap and refuse to let him get his own seat during dinner while Allura went over where they needed to improve, or—)

(Lance needed to stop thinking.)

And sure, Hunk gave him some more weird looks, but it was all good. Hunk trusted him enough to let him have his weird moments, and he’d probably ask questions later, but he wouldn’t poke at sore sp—

A flash of purple streaked through Lance’s peripheral vision, right towards Hunk, and something in him snapped.

The Galra had gotten creative after a while, started using grenades and bombs instead of just shooting, knowing that Team Voltron had armor and shields that could withstand standard-issue Galra blasters. They couldn’t afford to replace the weaponry of every soldier and drone in the army, not when they didn’t know where to concentrate their efforts since Voltron’s hits were too random in their—

(Until Jashekrix.)

— _in their eyes_. They couldn’t afford to replace everything, but they sent out grenades of sorts to the likeliest targets, and they became standard issue at the kinds of places that the paladins visited. They were, unsurprisingly, gray and purple, and created a large enough blast that even the paladin armor would take a beating. Much like grenades on Earth, the only way to make sure it _didn’t_ hurt anyone on their side was to pick it up and throw it back.

And Lance knew his instincts, after two years of nonstop war, weren’t exactly necessary or even helpful to daily life as a random teenager on Earth. They were primed for active warzones and paladin training, not high school. He knew this, but it didn’t change anything.

He would tell himself it was stupid, later, to freak out over a piece of foam coated in flaking purple plastic, but he’d know, deep down, that it was the same as Shiro freezing up when he remembered something from his missing year, the same as Pidge being unable to sleep because of thought spirals about her missing father, the same as Keith getting so zoned in on training that he didn’t realize seven hours and two full meals had passed, the same as Allura immediately putting someone in an arm lock if they startled her, the same as Hunk doing his systems check on Yellow twelve times over because _what if he’d missed something?_

(PTSD, someone would say, if they knew the full story. Soldier’s Heart. Combat Stress Reaction. Shell shock. Battle fatigue. _Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder._ )

Lance was a soldier in a child’s body, and that body was almost as good at going into overdrive at a supposed threat as the one he’d been wearing just yesterday.

So a flash of purple headed towards Hunk and a childish combat simulation was all it really took to make Lance snap back to battle mode.

He stepped over and reached out to grab the offending projectile, sending it whirling back at whoever had thrown it. The rest of the room was too loud, full of screaming and hollering, but that wasn’t really any different from any battle, especially one with civilians, so he filtered it out automatically. There were four opponents left, and six projectiles lying on the floor within several seconds’ reach or less.

Lance stepped to the side and dropped to pick up one, popping up and aiming at the nearest opponent.

(One.)

He ducked the next shot, picking up another projectile on the way, and turned to the next. He missed, but that was alright, because they’d taken their eyes off of him to dodge, so all he really had to do was grab the next projectile and send it at them before they could find one of their own or regain their bearings.

(Two.)

The last two were both coming closer, each with a projectile in hand. One aimed for Lance, but the other aimed for Hunk, which was unacceptable. Lance sprinted towards Hunk, who’d moved further away while Lance had been occupied, and grabbed the projectile before it hit him. He used it to block the one that was sent at him directly, and sent the one he was holding at the one that had aimed for Hunk. He didn’t have a projectile for the last one, and he dropped his eyes to the floor to scan for another, flicking up every other moment to make sure the opponent hadn’t found a weapon of their own.

Something red flew past his head, a few feet out, and hit the opponent. Lance blinked for a moment ( _current context: a hit means they’re not a threat, regardless of status as dead or living_ ), and turned around to face Hunk, who had his arm outstretched like he’d been the one to throw the weapon.

Hunk smiled at him, straightening up. “Lance, that was _awesome_. Since when can you throw like that?”

Why was Hunk smiling? Wasn’t he supposed to be telling Lance which way to go now that they’d won so they could get out? Why wasn’t Pidge feeding them information on how to— Wait, no, Hunk wasn’t smiling anymore, his face was falling and—

“Lance? Are you okay?”

Lance could feel the room shaking, almost as much as his hands and ( _why were his hands shaking_ ) and he was sweating a lot and Hunk wasn’t wearing his armor? Why wasn’t Hunk wearing his armor he was going to get _hit_ he was going to get _hurt_ and there was Keith and Keith wasn’t looking happy but he wasn’t in his armor either and—

“Lance? Lance, buddy, look at me, you’re _shaking_ , what’s—”

He could hear Galra ships and he could hear footsteps, metal and clanking and _drones there were drones why were there still drones Shiro was supposed to take care of those most of the time_ but where was Shiro where was Allura they were supposed to be giving instructions and Lance could hear the echo of Pidge’s voice in his ear but couldn’t make out what she was saying and—

“—oach Dana, I don’t know, but I think it might be sensory overload? He forgot to take his meds this morning, so do you think it would be okay if I took him out into the hallway and—”

Hands on his body hands everywhere why were there ha—wait no just two hands just Hunk and Hunk was safe and they were outside and—

“Okay, buddy, just sit down here against the wall and, okay, yeah, that’s it, just slide down like that and look at me. Can you look at me? Lance? Do you know where you are?”

Hunk was here. Hunk was okay. Hunk was talking to him? Why was Hunk talking to him?

“Lance? Lance, buddy, can you tell me what happened? Can you tell me where you are? Actually, wait, no, that’s a bad idea, can you focus on your breathing instead? Can you focus on that for me? In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Can you do that for me?”

Lance couldn’t slow down his breathing. He couldn’t really focus on it either. He looked down at his hands. They were in Hunk’s. Hunk had some big hands, but they weren’t in his armor and that meant he wasn’t safe. He needed his armor. And his bayard. Why didn’t he have his bayard? He was supposed to keep it with him all the—

_Hunk was dead._

Lance’s head snapped up and he stared Hunk’s face.

“Okay, when I said to try to control your breathing, I wasn’t planning for you to _stop._ ” Hunk reached out and put his hands on Lance’s shoulders. “Lance? Do you know where you are? You’re kinda freaking me out here.”

Where? They were—but Hunk was dead. And—Lance closed his eyes and focused, starting to hyperventilate again, which, hey, at least he was breathing and—Hunk had died, and so had everyone else, and they’d been cremated, and Lance had maybe started getting depression (but it was too short of a time to be sure if it was going to go clinical but it was still a thing and why was—), and then they’d… time-travelled.

Time-travel.

So Hunk wasn’t dead.

And neither were the others.

“In for four, hold for eight, out for seven,” Hunk said again. “Can you do that?”

“Garrison,” Lance finally managed to get out between gasping breaths. He opened his eyes and looked up at Hunk. “We’re at the Garrison.”

“Yeah, we are.” Hunk nodded and tried to smile. “You wanna try to get your breathing under control now? You’re gonna pass out at this rate.”

Lance nodded. “O-okay.”

“In for one, two, three, four. Hold for one, two, three, four, five, six…” Hunk kept counting, pacing Lance through his breathing, moving around to rub at his back. Lance collapsed to the side against Hunk, half of his attention on his breathing and half of it on the fact that Hunk was _here_ and _alive_ and _okay_.

They stayed like that for a few long minutes, and Lance was mostly calm again by the time the door a few dozen feet down the hall opened up to let the rest of the class out. A handful of them glanced over at where Hunk and Lance were, but continued away down the hall without commenting. Even Keith stopped for a moment, but turned to leave after a second or two.

“Can you talk about it?” Hunk asked quietly.

“No,” Lance said, closing his eyes as tightly as he could, squeezing hard enough for a few tears to escape.

Blue purred as comfortingly as she could, something warm and worried and tired.

“I’ll be okay,” Lance said, instead of offering any explanation at all. “Not yet. But I will.”

“Should I expect more of this?” Hunk asked, still quiet.

“…probably.”

“Okay, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The parts of this chapter that I'm most worried about are actually the math and the references to Lance's ADHD (because he DOES have it but is also kind of lying about it to cover up something else, etc.).
> 
> Regarding why this took so long: I've been spending a LOT of time working on my other fic, "Just a Little Death." If you want a Lance-centric longfic that's canon-verse plus modern fantasy elements, maybe check it out? It's a lot less angsty than the title implies, because the title is actually a pun.
> 
> Art for this chapter can be found here: http://thewonderfulwizardofass.tumblr.com/post/163186915243/  
> (Please go reblog twwoa's art; it's amazing and deserves to be shared with the world. We actually did our best to come up with the UGLIEST POSSIBLE GYM UNIFORM and we'll probably share the ideas eventually.)


	3. In Which Lance Makes Plans and Has an Trolley Dilemma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to spin some plates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, all! Sorry for disappearing; I got caught up writing "Just a Little Death" (feel free to check it out; it's complete), and then had some issues with productivity for a few months for various reasons. The art for this chapter is going to be a little delayed since my partner for this project is having time pressure IRL and can't draw for TBtC right now.
> 
> Enjoy!

Part of Lance was very, very grateful that he’d landed on a Friday instead of, say, a Tuesday. Friday meant that he didn’t have long to wait until the weekend, and Saturday was only ever a half-day. Saturdays were two hours of PE, two hours at the simulators, and then break for free time for the rest of the day. Saturdays were something Lance could fumble his way through without too much trouble, if he tried.

“Are you _sure?”_ Hunk asked, eyeing Lance dubiously from his bed. “Today was—”

“A fluke,” Lance said, and then sighed when Hunk kept eyeing him. “Okay, not a fluke, but I know what happened. I’m not going to be that easy to…”

 _To trigger_ , really. That was the exact term here.

“I’m going to be more aware, after today,” Lance said, after a too-long pause. He leaned back on his own bed until he rested against the wall. “I’m working on figuring out what my issues are, and if I know what to expect going in, I can be more prepared for it, right?”

Hunk kept looking at him, looking concerned and unbelieving and maybe a little disappointed.

“Hunk?”

“I don’t know what to think, Lance,” he finally said. “Today has just been… you’re not _you_.”

Lance took a deep breath and closed his eyes, bringing up his hands to press the heels of his palms against the lids. He stayed that way for a few long, long moments, and then dropped his hands as he finally breathed out again. “I told you things were going to be different.”

“And I want to respect that, but… Lance, people don’t just change this much overnight!” Hunk gestured vaguely at the air. “You ate the omelet without being grossed out, didn’t pick a fight with Keith, had a _panic attack_ during PE for… I don’t even know _what_ reason, but seeing as I’ve never seen you do that before, and I’m really, _really_ concerned right now!”

Lance pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs and hiding his face as best he could.

“So… no explanation.”

“I told you I can’t explain things.”

“Until you’re almost seventeen.”

“My birthday doesn’t actually have anything to do with it,” Lance muttered. “That part’s just a coincidence.”

Hunk frowned, waiting for elaboration, and then sighed when none came. “Okay, then. I’ll… give you benefit of the doubt, I guess.”

Lance lifted his head, resting his chin on his knees, and chewed on his lip for a bit. He wished he had his bayard to fiddle with, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen for a while. “I… I do trust you, Hunk. I trust you more than pretty much any human being I’ve ever met.”

“Just the human beings, huh?” Hunk asked with a snort.

Lance smiled weakly. “Yeah, well, there’s a lion out there that’s holding my heart. Two of them, actually.”

“If you say so,” Hunk said, a smile of his own tugging at the corner of his mouth. “But if you trust me so much…”

“I _can’t_ ,” Lance said, eyes dropping to the floor. “It’s… there’s a lot of sensitive information involved. Way more than you think. Getting therapy isn’t an option, because I can’t be honest about why I need it, and I can’t tell _you_ yet, because… well, because I’d sound like I was an entirely different type of mentally ill, which I really can’t afford right now. Not… not if I want to actually stick to the plan.”

“There’s a plan?” Hunk asked.

Lance nodded, swallowing. “Trust me, the _last_ thing I want to do is lie to you. I just… I can’t tell you the whole truth. It’s not… I just can’t. I’m sorry, Hunk, I _can’t_.”

“…you mentioned another support system yesterday,” Hunk said. “Do they know whatever it is that’s going on?”

“She was there,” Lance confirmed. He closed his eyes, squeezing tight and taking a deep breath. _Don’t think of Jashekrix. Don’t._ “So, uh, yeah. She knows. You will too, eventually. I’ll tell you when…” not when it was safe, because it wouldn’t be safe until Zarkon was _dead_ , and Haggar with him, and Hunk needed to know long before that. “When it’s time to go up.”

“Go… up?” Hunk asked. “Like, into orbit or something?”

“Or something,” Lance said. He met Hunk’s eyes, biting his lip again. “I trust you, but it’s too soon. Can… can you trust me back?”

“…yeah, man, of course.”

o.o.o.o.o

It had been literal years since Lance had flown a simulator of a human-made spacecraft.

This wasn’t to say that Lance hadn’t practiced flying outside of a lion. It was unavoidable, really, from hovercraft to rebel ships to that one time he and Pidge had hijacked an entire battlecruiser. Lance had plenty of experience flying, both inside a lion and out, but that was all alien. It was all vaguely intuitive on Altean crafts, since everything was just a little psychic, and practice had taken care of the others.

Human ships, though?

This was the first time Lance was even _seeing_ English inside a craft in two years.

“Okay,” he whispered to himself. He’d studied back up on basic flying info for a human spaceship just last night. He could do this. He _knew_ this. He’d been flying in a war for two years. A simulator couldn’t be that much of a challenge, right?

It both was and wasn’t.

It took _time_ to adjust. Lance was constantly reaching for buttons that weren’t there, listening for voices that weren’t coming, and letting his eyes scan over equipment for words in languages that wouldn’t reach Earth for at least another fifteen months. Lance was used to a completely different kind of vessel, and it showed. It was like learning to drive on a manual car, spending two years driving automatic, and then suddenly being asked to drive stick again.

It was _hard_.

But.

He could work with it. There was a familiarity here, more than he expected. It took a few minutes (and what a rocky few minutes they were), but he settled back into the rhythm of a human spacecraft eventually. Once he did, it was... well, not quite smooth sailing, but it was something. He had experience as a pilot in actual firefights, and he had experience with human spacecraft, and together that meant he was… _vaguely_ competent?

The teacher, Captain Martell, gave him an odd look as he left the simulator following a near-crash that had still scraped up the side of one hypothetical wing as he’d scrambled to remember how to get the landing gear out on a human craft. Lance shot back an uneasy smile, and waited for his score. Captain Martell glanced down at the screen in their hands, bit their lip, and then read it out.

74%

Well.

Could be worse.

Lance glanced at the leaderboard at the corner of the room. This had dropped him one spot, putting him three below the line for fighter pilot, and twelve below Keith.

It wasn’t optimal, not really. He was still within reach, but he needed to put in the work to actually make it a sure thing. Keith would probably ditch the Garrison whether Lance befriended him or not, but that wasn’t necessarily a full guarantee that Lance would get in. _Assuming_ Keith dropped out, Lance would need to be right at very top of cargo class to get in, and right now, he wasn’t that. If Keith, for some reason, _stayed_ at the Garrison, then Lance needed to be a fighter pilot from the get-go to have a chance at befriending Pidge and sticking with Hunk. Sure, he’d be pushing out someone who probably deserved the spot, but it was for the good of the universe.

Well, they’d get it anyway once Lance left for the war, so he wouldn’t be pushing someone into cargo class permanently. He’d probably get better scores once he got a little more accustomed to the systems again. Granted, he didn’t have that much time, but he’d manage. Probably.

He’d work on it.

o.o.o.o.o

Lance climbed up to the roof.

It wasn’t hard, not really. He’d been good at getting out of Garrison back when he’d _actually_ been this age, and with several years of “sneak into this Galra base, shoot some things and guard Pidge while she hacks a different thing, and get out undetected if you can” under his belt, getting out was pretty easy.

He tipped his head back and stared at the stars.

Lance sat on the roof with his hands linked together around his bent knees, but that only lasted until he gave up and just lay flat, staring at the sky he’d nearly forgotten. It took longer than he wanted to admit to pick out the constellations he’d once known intimately. He still knew them by heart, if not quite so immediately, but it stung.

His eyes traced over the pinpricks of light, finding the Lion constellation and smiling at the tired, inquisitive nudge from the back of his mind.

“Hey, girl,” Lance sighed, voice so quiet that he couldn’t even hear them himself as the light wind  teased them away from him and out across the desert. Still, Blue could hear him. “How you doin’?”

An impression of laughter, more of a snort than anything. She knew he already knew how he was.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. The others?”

She sent the sensation of a shrug. Lance could just barely feel Red in his mind, and Black even more distantly, but he’d never really been close enough to Yellow or Green to feel them like this. Blue was his first lion, though, and even if her connection to him hadn’t ended up twisting into something new when he’d bonded with Red, the physical proximity meant she was automatically the one best suited to talking to him.

“Alright but no details, then,” Lance decided, practiced at interpreting Blue’s preferred method of communication. Images and sensations weren’t exactly easy to interpret for someone who’d grown up using words and body language, but he was used to it.

Blue pushed back, curious in turn, and Lance closed his eyes. He sighed heavily, because there really wasn’t any easy way to answer her questions. She pushed again.

“I don’t know,” Lance said quietly. “I’m... not okay, but I’m better? I think? Maybe my brain’s just waiting until I’m more settled in to commence the freak-out some more.”

A flash of yellow.

“He cares, but it’s not... he’s _worried_ , and I think it’s hurting his feelings that I’m holding so many things back even though something is really, really obviously wrong. I guess he thinks I don’t trust him, but it’s not that, it’s _definitely_ not that, I just—”

A rush of soothing energy. Understanding. Affection that was almost maternal, to the point where Lance would have leaned into it if it were something as physical as a hug.

Green, now.

“She isn’t here yet.”

Acknowledgement, then red.

“I’ve got a few ideas,” Lance muttered. “He’s not going to be interested if I just go up to him, and I can’t wait too long or Kerberos is going to make him shut off _completely_ , and I’d rather make friends as early as possible. The longer I know him, the better we can work together, and the faster we can get Voltron working, and the more people we can save. Besides, he needs some kind of emotional support after Kerberos. Dealing with all that himself wasn’t good for him the first time around. But... I _can’t_ just go up to him. He’ll be suspicious, or dismissive, or... or something. I don’t know. I’ve got a few ideas, just need to figure out how to implement them.”

Blue pushed the red again, with a certain tinge that Lance knew far too well.

“...no. I can’t. I really, really can’t. It’s, uh... unethical? Yeah, that’s the word. It’s unethical. I knew him for years, know things about him that he doesn’t know himself, and trying to look for a romance with someone I’m not only almost three years older than, but also know that intimately when he doesn’t know me at all? That’s just... no. I can’t. It’s gross.”

Blue sent a whine, but didn’t push again. Pink came up, and—

“Can’t get her before we go up as a team, refuse to restart that romance either,” Lance said firmly. He paused, thinking. “Maybe I can nudge them together, though? I know the situation started because they both liked me, and I liked both of them, but they liked each other well enough _that_ way after we started trying to make it work as a poly thing. They might make a good couple even without me there as the... hinge, I guess?”

Blue laughed.

Lance opened his eyes again and smiled, watching the sky. Yeah, that actually sounded like a decent idea, though he obviously wouldn’t try to force anything. Things were obviously going to change, and what had happened in the future-that-wasn’t shouldn’t force his hand for stuff like this. That was all up to them.

Blue nudged him again, and then—

Black and white.

Lance winced. “I can’t. The Garrison won’t listen if I tell them, and you don’t have enough energy, so stopping the mission before it hits Kerberos isn’t really an option. By the time you _do_ have enough energy to pull that kind of mission again, they’ll already be lost to the Empire, and it’ll actually lower our chances of seeing them again if I try to use you to hunt them down again. If we wait, we’re at least _sure_ , you know?”

Hesitation, and then another suggestion.

“...maybe,” Lance said, though his gut reaction was a twisted, terrified ‘no.’ “But they might take you away, and—I mean, it might be safer, but...”

Lance squeezed his eyes shut and thought.

Option One: Wait until Shiro came back in a year and a half, and then tell everyone once they got to the Castle of Lions. It was a solid plan, in that the lack of interfering elements meant that Lance could keep things predictable and know that it would mostly work out okay once he could control things a bit better and actually give people information on the castle. Conversely, it would leave the team from aboard Orpheus, already on their way to Kerberos, in the hands of the Galra for a year at minimum, and while Lance knew they’d be okay, it was still a lot of torture that was hard to justify to himself if other options were available. It would also mean shoving his friends, still teenagers, into the role of paladin, something that was sketchy when they didn’t know what was happening and he did.

Option Two: Wait until Blue was back in fighting form and blast off, probably alone, to hunt down Shiro. This meant that at least one person would spend less time in Galra hands, _but_ it also meant that they might tighten security on Matt and Sam, change their plans for Ryou in Project Kuron, or hide Red away somewhere that Lance and the others couldn’t find them. Going straight for the Marmora base and getting their help in springing Shiro free early would help Lance find him, at least, but earning their trust would be difficult, especially without Keith... who would probably agree to go if Lance told him it would help them find Shiro, but still.

Option Three: Tell the Garrison to halt the Kerberos Mission, bring the Holts and Shiro home, and go from there. This had a good risk of getting Lance kicked out of the Garrison for lying to command unless he went with Blue’s suggestion and used her as evidence that aliens were real and he knew what he was talking about.

Yeah, that one terrified Lance. It was the one that _wasn’t_ going to result in Shiro getting tortured and the Holts sent to slave camps, but it was also the one with the biggest chance of going completely wrong. The Galra had to have been waiting for the Kerberos team for test subjects, not just ‘in the area.’ Earth wasn’t completely unknown, as the Space Mall had proved, but all information indicated that the Galra had never had human test subjects before. With humans finally reaching the edges of their own system, the Galra had decided that it was time to take a look, and the Kerberos crew was the easiest steal.

The chances of this going well were... Lance didn’t know, actually. If he was lucky, they’d retrieve the three-man team, get a set of paladins ready, and head for Arus with Blue’s emergency portal.

But the Garrison would probably insist on sending tried-and-true soldiers, more experienced than the teenagers that had gone the first time, to space. Lance could talk his way into going, given Blue, and maybe even Shiro and Keith, since Shiro was already an acclaimed officer, and Keith’s half-Galra background could be useful, but that was dicey. Hunk and Pidge, probably not even. Green would probably accept Matt in a pinch, or—but ultimately, it wouldn’t be Lance’s team, and things would be skewed, and he’d lose what little control he _might_ have to the Garrison. People would see him as seventeen and inexperienced, even if he told them point blank that he had over one year of training and over two years of fighting the Galra as a paladin behind him. Even when he was the most experienced paladin, and he would be no matter _how_ things went, unless people came back to life or Zarkon somehow stole Black, and while that would be awkward with his original team, it would be even worse if the other paladins were suddenly all older Garrison soldiers. It would be nice to not have to force his teammates, all but Shiro currently underage, into a war they weren’t ready for and didn’t deserve to suffer through, but it came with its own complications.

Blue pushed a thought into his mind, and he laughed weakly. Yeah, he could see the Lions refusing anyone but their original paladins too, or Black refusing anyone but Lance and _forcing_ everyone to acknowledge his experience in the role, but that didn’t make him any more comfortable with the idea.

That was also just the best-case scenario.

There was a chance that the Garrison wouldn’t do anything about the Orpheus, just let them continue to Kerberos, assuming that Lance was lying about the time-travel and had just found Blue by chance. They could take her away, with as low as her power was going to be for a while, or lock Lance himself up, or use one as leverage against the other. Lance didn’t think they’d go as far as keeping him prisoner or using him as leverage; they weren’t _that_ inhumane, but they might not believe in Blue’s sapience, and they might not believe Lance himself. It would mean no Voltron to fight in the war, or Voltron would happen, but only once the Orpheus was already captured and his crew gone, and by then it wouldn’t _matter_ that he’d told someone, because the Galra would already have them, and it would be just like Option Two.

There was a chance that the Garrison _would_ believe him, but not believe that fighting the Galra was worth it. World War II had involved several countries trying to barter with Hitler before realizing that it wasn’t going to work, and the attempts at placation and diplomacy had resulted in millions of lost lives. When the Garrison told the government, as they were obligated to, there was every chance that someone higher up in the political chain of command would try to ask Sam Holt to negotiate with Zarkon for Earth’s safety.

There was a chance... _god_ , there was a chance that they would listen to Lance, believe every word, bring Orpheus and his passengers home, and that the Galra would follow and destroy Earth.

(Most of the possible results of Option Three meant that Ryou wouldn’t exist, and Lance wasn’t... wasn’t ready for that.)

Was Lance willing to put eleven billion lives at risk for the sake of avoiding a year’s torture or several years of slavery for three men?

Was Lance willing to put the potential lives of innumerable other planets at risk to keep Earth safe instead of heading out with a more competent, older team as early as possible?

“Blue...” Lance whispered, trying to ignore the tears that pricked at his eyes. “Blue, I can’t make that decision.”

And though she hated it, hated words and how variable they could be, how they meant too much and not enough, she said, _But you have to. You are the only one who can._

“Keith and Pidge might hate me when they find out I could have saved Shiro and the Holts,” Lance said, voice already rough from the urge to cry.

A strong negative. Blue didn’t think they would, and if they did, she would have his back.

“Shiro’s going to be tortured. We’ll lose Sam, and Matt’s going to be put in a labor camp.”

Blue acknowledged this, but didn’t judge it.

Lance thought to himself, thought _billions of lives_ and _my team_ and _sure things_ , and made his decision.

o.o.o.o.o

Lance went to sleep with tears on his face, but with the knowledge that he’d wait.

For the safety of his planet, for the good of the universe, for the surety of what little good parts of the future he could promise himself, he’d wait.

And in a year’s time, he’d go to space and face the consequences.

o.o.o.o.o

Hunk wasn’t in the room, off studying in the library for one of his engineering track courses. He had a test tomorrow, and felt that the library was a better place to study than the dorm rooms. Lance had offered to leave, but Hunk had waved him off and insisted that the library really was a better study environment than the dorms. Given that this lined up with Hunk’s general attitude in the original timeline, Lance figured he was being legit instead of just trying to get away from The Ongoing Weirdness.

Lance paced around his room, rolling a pen back and forth between his palms in an effort to dispel some of his excess energy. It wasn’t just normal energy, either, but nervous energy, which was all the worse. Nervous energy had him sweating and jittery, and the normal stims weren’t going to help as much as usual. Really, the solution was always the same, and he always hated the solution: just get it over with.

The thing was, Lance _wanted_ to do this. Lance not only needed to do this, but wanted it as much as he wanted anything else in his life, and more than most. This was something he’d been desperate for while in space, but now that he was back on Earth, the concept was... terrifying.

Video-chatting his family was terrifying.

They’d notice it immediately, wouldn’t they? They’d notice something was wrong. That his voice cracked when he tried to talk to them, maybe. Or he’d start crying and they’d ask why and he wouldn’t be able to lie well enough. Maybe they’d reference something they told him just last week, and he’d have no idea what they were talking about. Maybe he’d zone out halfway through, lost in a flashback like Shiro had been when they first found him, his body reacting to the newer, relatively safer situation by letting all the trauma out. Maybe—

Cold spread through his chest, icy and not outright painful, but uncomfortable enough to shock him out of the thought spiral. A curling comfort pressed at the back of his mind, dousing the cold flame back to his usual warmth, and Lance forced himself to relax.

He didn’t know what was going to happen.

But... they were his family. They’d love him, and accept him, and he could always blame Garrison nonsense on any changes in his personality. They were far enough away that he could use the distance as a smokescreen. They’d let him be weird and different, and they’d worry, sure, but they wouldn’t... they _probably_ wouldn’t get angry, right?

Lance took a deep breath and sat down at his computer. He turned it on, booted up the video chat program, and made the call.

He smiled when the call went through, video activating with an excited greeting already leaving his mother’s lips.

“Hey Mamá,” he said, already trying not to cry. “It’s good to see you again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone remember the story of Orpheus? He went to the land of the dead (Pluto's lands) to fetch someone/thing, but failed to return to the land of the living, despite performing exquisitely as entertainment for the ruler and his wife. He came very close, but inevitably returned to the cold and dark. Sound familiar?
> 
> If you want to see me ramble on about Voltron and other nonsense, my tumblr is @phoenixyfriend as well. If you're interested in my original fiction, I can be found @phoenix-k-scriven-fiction.
> 
> EDIT: Okay, I forgot to mention this, but I would _adore_ reading a story where Lance goes to the Garrison and just tells them everything in a situation like this. It's a level of SWERVE that would change everything, provide the opportunity for some interesting OCs, etc.  
>  NGL I might actually write this if I get bored enough one day, but if anyone wants to take the idea and run, just link me when you get it posted!


End file.
